Azazel
Magically Void Azazels (Azel for short) are a race of humanoids that are not far off from humans on the family tree. They have claws on their fingers, pointed ears and sharp fangs in place of teeth. In some cases, Azels may sport short horns or thin tails but this is a recessive gene and rarely shows. Azels are widely disliked by a majority of races and have been scapegoated throughout history because it was easy to do so. As a result of this, they are sometimes called 'Lesser Demons' by humanoids and 'Pit Scum' by demonic entities even though Azazels are not natural members of any Fell bloodline. Unique to Azels is the absolute inability to use any kind of magic, and when spells or magic is used on an Azel it is voided and has no affect. Physiology The common Azel looks a lot like a human-elf hybrid at first glance. They have pointed ears like Elves, but the ears are not long like an Elf's, in fact they are only slightly longer than a human's ear. The also tend to have slightly darker complexions than pale Elves, but never getting darker than very tan. The difference between other humanoids lays in the hands and teeth. The final knuckle of the hand is tipped with a claw, most often black but very rarely pink-white or brown. Their teeth are sharp and broad, much like the teeth of a white shark, and almost impossible to hide when they smile. Azels have a higher percentage of muscle than humans, which causes many problems but also gives them advantages in combat. If an Azel falls from a high place, they have a higher risk of sustaining great injury and they are very bad swimmers. Other issues reguarding their flexibility exist. However, the race is unnaturally strong for their size. A bear may have trouble fighting an Azel, despite being twice as large. Azazels can have any color hair that a human can have, including pale, white, red, dark purple and dark blue. Their eyes can also be any color that any natural human's can be, as well as silver, bright green, purple, red, orange and yellow. Some Azazels have small horns or short devil-like tails. It is unknown why this is so. The three most popular theories are somewhat similar; one says that this is because they truly aren't humanoids but are instead members of the Fell family of demons, another says that Azazels were originally hybrid offspring of humanoids and Fells. The final one claims that the gene is only present on Azels that have Fell in their ancestry and the reason they don't all display it is because not all Azazels share a common Fell ancestor, but instead a humanoid ancestor. All that is known is that the gene is recessive and also very rare, most likely because of the prosecution of the race that thinned the gene pool. There are three 'nationalities' of Azazel, Forest, Desert and Lakeside that are each very subtly different. Forest Azels are palest in complexion and sometimes sport freckles, and have the brightest colors of hair and eyes. Desert Azels are the darkest of the three and often have the dullest hair and eye coloration, and are the most likely to sport horns or tails. Lakeside Azels are the thinnest and have the longest ears and claws of the three, and wide variation of eye and hair color. This may not be very important in many contexts, but there's been more than one occasion in which a forest Azel has been offended because it was implied they live in the desert. Abilities Azazels are magic sinks. Their abilities work as if they were sponges and magic was a substance like water. The way magic is viewed in the most popular theory is that magic is never fully whatever element it tries to be, but is instead a form of energy that manipulates itself to become almost exactly like the element in question, or it manipulates other preexisting objects to do an action. For example, when a fire mage sets herself on fire, she will not burn because in this hypothetical mindset of the world they aren't truly setting fire upon themselves (which requires constant fuel to burn), but instead their magic mimics fire to a degree in which there is almost no difference between fire and their fire magic. The only time there is difference really, is when a magic sink is in play. So if someone hurls a fireball at an Azel, they will absorb the magic and there is no consequence to their body. Their clothes, however, may burn because their power doesn't extend beyond their physical touch. What if someone was using magic to throw a rock at an Azel? It would loose momentum almost immediately because the moment they touched the rock, the magic spell is nulled and what was holding the rock in the air and moving it forward is gone. To an extent, an Azazel's powers also remove some affects of magical alterations. The rock was propelled by magic, henceforth the rock is now put back into rest because it was being magically altered to move forward. Air needles shot at them would just disperse and loose their point upon contact, magical water is absorbed on contact. Some poorly cast spells can even be broken by touch alone. Because they are magical 'sponges', an Azel will not null something it isn't touching. If they were wearing gloves, they would not null anything. The same affect occurs with their clothes and shoes. So say an Azazel is walking inside of a tunnel an Earth Mage enchanted. If an Azel rested his or her hand on the wall, it just may just crush them because the magic keeping the wall suspended would be taken out and the rocks would fall back into place. So what happens to magic an Azazel absorbs? What if an Azazel hugs a magical creature? There's lore that explains a lot of possibilities about what their bodies do with all of that magic. Some anti-Azel races think that the magic builds and builds in their bodies and if they are attacked in certain ways, all the magic bursts and turns them into monsters. The Azazel religion speaks of a god who flawlessly locked their power away within their bodies because they were created with 'too much power to control on their own' and their monstrous strength exists because that is the magic locked away expressing itself. In any case, Azazels tend to ironically have energy problems and brain disorders the way certain breeds of dogs express genetic defects. It's a mystery with lots of answers, none of them clear. It all simply contributes to the dislike of the Azels, since people just seem to inherently hate what they can't understand. If an Azazel hugs a magical creature, or any being in particular, they surprisingly won't feel any negative affects unless they are actively leaking magic in a large-scale way. The reasoning is that there is a physical body in the way of their magic absorption. A stone elemental would be safe from dying even though they are enchanted rock because they're fueled from within. Now if someone was running on something like a magic crystal attached to their arm or chest on the outside, they would be in grave danger of an Azel's touch. If a being was radiating massive amounts of energy, the Azel would naturally absorb all of that up and could accidentally suck up all of their magic before a being could notice! Think of it as magic circulates within a body like blood, and when it's being used it's focused to a point. It's like you're rearranging your magic veins. Put a cloth that absorbs all that blood inside a point of circulation and one could end up loosing a lot of magic if the circuit wasn't cut off quickly. Customs and Society Like humans, Azazels have much variation from individual to individual on culture and values. There tends to be three rather distinct subcultures amoung Azazels in the forests, deserts and lakesides, however because only one Azazel attends the Academy there is no need to elaborate on the distinctions and only a general overview will be provided. Azazel soceity has been hardened by the war, and many lands have been rocked by poverty because of the longtime embargo. Though there are pockets of kindess and kinship especially in small towns, most of the cities have fallen into mob rule loosley loyal to the central government because of old glory tales and partially because they believe the current leadership is competent. Azel culture tends to place a much stronger importance on pack mentality than other humanoid societies, and because of this value most towns and cities have a representative that is not oftened questioned, be it because of their immense power or endless compassion. In this current day and age, however, this often falls into the former. Azels love to dance and love music. Especially with music that has strong beats and catchy tunes. Azazels have a very stylized kind of music that sounds something like a hybrid between rock and jazz, and it is said that a good Azel party is like the last level of a Party Animal's dream game of life. While most humanoids tend to share a common idea of last names, Azazels have a unique title system that counts their generations to the last important ancestor and also the bloodline they would come from in the case of multiple children. An example of this would be- "Sin of the first bloodline of Dire's hand, sixfold down." Because her most important ancestor (Dire), counts as the first generation it makes the sentence 'six times down' and not five, as the progenator counts as the first generation in an Azazel's eyes, and his first offspring was Alpha which would make Sin of the first bloodline. Upon opening of the Academy, Sin's grandfather has tried to end this tradition for Sin and possibly for the rest of his people, but it is not a custom that will go so easily. Before the War Azels are an ancient race that never had their own civilization until recently. In the eras before the war, they were either parts of hunter-gatherer tribes or joined other races and tried to fit in. It's highly likely that Azazels first came into being around a desert-like area, as they seem to be the most energetic in high temperature environments and the oldest colorings of their hair, skin and nails which blend into sandy environments. At some point in prehistory, they had been designated as cursed beings that brought plague, famine and fire. To the current day, it is still believed by some that Azazels bring those three disasters wherever they go. During and After the War As resources dwindled in the old world, more and more races went to terrorizing Azazels as a way to vent their frustrations. Their hunter-gathering society was killed a little more with each settlement burns to the ground. The race was backed into a corner with no one to speak for them and no where for them to run. In a way, the war over the New World saved their race. It gave the Azazels a new place to run and hide and also drawed away attention from the race's prosecutors. If the war had broken out a few months later than it did, the race may have been too small and injured to fight in it. An Azazel named Dire, who had been orphaned in the terrorism of his race, rose up as a hero and leader. His people flocked to him like injured dogs from burned villiages and brutal beatings and he gave them a new hope. It is said that Dire brought out the talents of his people and in just a few months he turned berry-pickers and pig-stickers into world class soldiers ready to make their rightful claim in the world. They were not one of the first races in the war but they joined early on, just as the other races had been getting used to the fighting. The Azazel army shook the battlefield and there was a point where it seemed they were about to overwhelm the races that had been fighting. Some credit this to Dire's sharp wit and immense wisdom, others claim that it was because none of the other races had gotten used to fighting beings that used and could be attacked with magic. It's most likely that it was a combination of the two. However, the war didn't end so quickly and easily. Dire was betrayed by his lover and allegedly killed in front of his own people which left his sons in control of the massive land Dire had claimed. Dire's three sons lost Dire when they were very young, and did not have time to learn much from their father. Only one son, Pseudonym, truly know how to fight and rule, while the other two, Alpha and Maniac, acted mostly as figureheads to keep the Azazel people together. But because power was divided between them, Pseudonym was not able to keep up the offensive without dragging along his deadweight brothers. The nation fell into defensive and suffered horrible beatings, and one sign of Alpha's and Maniac's incompetence was the diplomatic blunder that erected an embargo between the majority of nations and the country that was already suffering great losses. Alpha eventually went mad with power and killed his brother Maniac, who he saw as his rival. Pseudonym was forced to assasinate Alpha before the madman killed Pseudonym himself. However, Pseudonym was not able to rule as well as one would expect after the limitations of his power had been cut off. He did not possess the charisma his brothers had inherited from their father and the realm was beaten even further south down the continent. Thirty years after Alpha's death, a monster who claimed he was the dead man's son came to play. He had sweet words and a powerful hand and eventually, the Azazel took power. No one knows what happened of Pseudonym at this time, some say he retired and others say the new leader had him killed, because Soulless was exactly what his name implied. He forced the Azels back into an aggressive front in the war, and anyone first above twenty, then above eighteen, and eventually sixteen and above were conscripted. No one was there to guide the young ones, and there were less people home to even have those young ones. The Azazel population suffered horribly as did the populations of any nation unlucky enough to be in Soulless' way. This was the first time the Azels truly lived up to the disgusting stigma that haunted their race. Their orders were no mercy, not on any elder, woman or child. Soulless' whimsies lasted for years after he had been assasinated. His son, Devil, and the current Azazel leader took the scepter mere hours after the madman hit the floor. They had fallen back into defensive in the final five years of the war, but the ancient enemies that had been preoccupied with stronger battles now again saw the Azazels as a threat, namely Humans and their allies. The population had suffered to the point where they could barely defend themselves, and history repeated itself as it had so many long years ago. To the current day, there are children scarred and elders who are missing limbs because of the echoes of Soulless' actions. Once again, the Azazels were being scapegoated for something beyond their control. But Devil was not like his father, and not like the incompetent brothers before him. The war luckily ended soon after that. When the nations came together to decide what they would do for their broken people, Devil was at every meeting even if he wasn't invited because no one seemed to want his race around. With teary testimonials and behind-the-curtain arm bending, Devil eventually managed to make the meetings truly fair for all races, even the unpopular and hated ones that may not have gotten a chance overwise. Because of the Azazel leadership, no race was left out because they were overshadowed by bigger races. Perhaps in a serendipitous manner, this has lead to true understanding between all races for the first time, even if it was just for a moment. Stereotype Cheat Sheet Azazels bring fire, plague and famine. All Azazels live in the desert. Azazels eat goats. All Azazels are addicted to fruits. Azazels can make voodoo dolls. Azazels are all thugs and/or theives. Azazels drink the blood of virgins and children and chew bones. Azazels paint themselves with blood and dance around fires shouting loudly. Azazels take and make sacrifices. Azazels always get along with demons.